Helping Others as the Main Goal of Volunteering Activities

Volunteerism Activities

In order to explore what public relations students learn in volunteerism activities, the researcher asked all the respondents the first interview question during the interviews. The interview question asked is “Please share your experience in volunteerism activities.” According to the results of interviews, the five respondents clearly expressed their views on volunteerism activities, which allowed them to obtain a lot of invaluable volunteering experiences. Two of them clearly mentioned that they can help the people who need help and serve the community in a charitable way, willing to participate in volunteerism activities.

“…I participated in UTAR Campaign: WOW Kampar 2019. During the event, I can help people from different backgrounds who are involved in the activities, then strengthen the bond with us...” Respondent B

“…I participated in quite many volunteerism activities since I studied in secondary schools. My family involved in volunteerism activities before but I also involved in some volunteerism activities in UTAR recently because I am the PR student. One of the activities is WOW Kampar 2019, but I also involved in some charity events before WOW Kampar 2019 such as helping people in the houses and other activities...” Respondent E

In addition, another three of the respondents gave another answer. They clearly stated that they need to communicate with other group members and maintain good time management, so as to overcome the challenges and finish the different tasks during the activities. Therefore, volunteerism activities could help them to learn knowledge and develop skills in the learning process.

“…I learned a lot from the activity. During the event, I can communicate well with other team members and control time management for academic studies and volunteerism activities...” Respondent A

“…I faced a lot of challenges and outcomes that make me faced the persons and learn more from volunteerism activities. My department is the program department. The challenges I faced are conflicts between the group members when thinking ideas about our program and find a solution to ensure the activities can run smoothly...” Respondent C

“…In my experience in the WOW Kampar 2019, I was participating in the decision of the logistics department. In the 3-days festivals, I was responsible for unit logistics so I learned how to communicate with other people in different tasks such as paper works, physical works, and others. I learned the aggressive communication style is important to make the event more successful...” Respondent D

Besides, in order to explore what volunteerism activities are, the researcher asked all the respondents the second interview question during the interviews. The interview question asked is “According to your opinion, what are volunteerism activities? Please elaborate on your answers”. Based on the results of interviews, the five respondents clearly expressed their views about volunteerism activities that are very significant for them. Four of them clearly mentioned that they have the opportunities to become volunteers in contributing to the improvement of society and making society at an advantage without any return and rewards from others. In addition, they also strongly believed that no one forced and allowed to utilize their own interest in helping anyone who needs help. Then, they enjoyed the moments of helping people so willing to participate in volunteerism activities to do something meaningful in a charitable way.

“…In my opinion, volunteerism activities are the activities that anyone can participate without enforces by others. As volunteers, we are interested in the activities. We can enjoy doing something meaningful and obtaining the feeling of happiness in helping others...” Respondent A

“…For me, volunteerism activities are the activities to help people without any return from them, such as money and others. The activities aim to make people an advantage. I mean that the people I helped can get the advantage because they have suffered in money and other problems so they need my help to solve the problems...” Respondent B

“…Volunteerism activity is a type of activity that people participate in the activity volunteers without any reward or return...” Respondent C

“…For me, I personally think that volunteerism activity is a kind of activity that you explore yourself and volunteered to do it. For example, when you see people painting in a wall, you may ask to help them without rewards because you may do it in a charitable way. If I was forced to join the activities, that’s not the volunteerism activities because no voluntary...” Respondent E

Furthermore, a few respondents answered the interview questions with different answers. One of them clearly stated that volunteerism activities are a necessary course for public relations students during their studies because volunteerism activities could help them to learn knowledge and develop skills in the learning process so that they have a competitive advantage in the future.

“…Besides WOW Kampar 2019, other volunteerism activities also a compulsory course for PR students to learn the industrial work so they have the experience and learn the communication skills or soft skills for their industrial life...” Respondent D

In short, volunteerism activities enabled students to utilized their self-interest in becoming volunteers without coercion of others, in order to improve their abilities, connect with each other, and gain invaluable experience in helping others.

Motivation Factors of Participation in Volunteerism Activities

In order to explore what will motivate public relations students to participate in volunteerism activities, the researcher asked all the respondents the third interview question during the interviews. The interview question asked is “What are the core factors that promote the motivation for your participation in volunteerism activities?”

After finishing the interviews with five respondents, the researcher found that several internal factors and external factors will promote the motivation for their participation in volunteerism activities. Based on the data analysis, there are two main themes which are (a) Internal factors for motivation of participation in volunteerism activities and (b) External factors for motivation of participation in volunteerism activities.

Internal Factors for Motivation of Participation in Volunteerism Activities

In order to explore what are the internal factors that promote the motivation for public relations students’ participation in volunteerism activities, the researcher asked all the respondents the fourth interview question during the interviews. The interview question asked is “What are the internal factors that promote the motivation for your participation in volunteerism activities?”

Based on the results of the interviews, the researcher succeeded in revealing a total of two initial codes for the internal factors that would promote the motivation of the respondents for their participation in volunteerism activities, namely (a) Happiness and (b) Self-satisfied. Based on the data analysis, there are two sub-themes which are (a) Enjoyment and (b) Inherent-satisfaction. In other words, the answers given by the five respondents about the motivation for their participation in volunteerism activities will be promoted by two of the internal factors, which are enjoyment and inherent-satisfaction. The motivation for their participation in volunteerism activities will usually be promoted because they enjoy the moment of helping others and strongly feeling a sense of happiness. Moreover, other respondents also gave the answer that participation in volunteerism activity will be enhanced because they will be satisfied if the outcomes successfully meet their interests and purpose of helping others.

Enjoyment

According to Ryff (1989), enjoyment often refers to people who do what they want without any complain, so as to fulfill their self-desire and strongly feel a sense of satisfaction. Based on the results of interviews, the answer given by a few respondents indicated that the motivation for their participation in volunteerism activities was promoted by one of the internal factors, which is enjoyment. Two of the five respondents gave this answer because they strongly believed that they will be obtaining the enjoyment of helping others and strongly feeling the happiness of people they helped after participation in volunteerism activities. Moreover, they love to join volunteerism activities that they are interested in from time to because they will feel happy and enjoy the wonderful moment after utilizing their own interests for volunteering to help those in need.

“…I can join the WOW Kampar 2019 event to feel happy with my friends when producing and making the event successful. That’s the enjoyment...” Respondent D

“…The internal factor is based on my interest. I would like to say that I enjoyed volunteering to help people, interact with others so allow me to improve myself in facing different situations and finding solutions. I played the personal role of a volunteer...” Respondent C

According to the answers given by the respondents, Respondent D clearly stated that enjoyment as an important internal factor that promoted the motivation for his participation in volunteerism activities because he has the opportunities to strongly feel a sense of happiness with his friends when he put his great effort in producing and making the volunteerism activities successful. In order to support the view of Respondent D, Respondent C also clearly mentioned that self-interest encouraged him to participate in volunteerism activities because she enjoyed the wonderful moments in the volunteering process when help people in need and interact with others. All the results clearly emphasized that enjoyment can be obtained after participation in volunteerism activities that they were interested in. As a result, the motivation for their participation in volunteerism activities will be promoted by one of the internal factors, which is enjoyment.

Inherent-Satisfaction

According to Finkelstein (2008), inherent-satisfaction is generally defined as a sense of self-satisfaction, self-fulfillment or self-achievement to one's needs and desires. According to the results of the interviews, another three of the five respondents had replied that inherent-satisfaction is extremely important for them in achieving their goals and fulfilling their needs. Thus, the motivation for their participation in volunteerism activities will be enhanced by another one of the internal factors, which is inherent-satisfaction.

“…I think that is inherent satisfaction because I will obtain some achievement after doing something in volunteerism activities. For instance, you will feel happy after helping people...” Respondent E

“…The core factor is I can achieve self-satisfaction after helping people in need because I want to help people. As I mentioned before, the internal factor is my self-satisfaction because I can obtain a reward in my heart as self-satisfaction after helping people in need and obtaining the feeling the happiness of helping others...” Respondent A

“…I want to help people in my mind because some people faced problems. So, I need providing supports to their material and psychological needs, even contribute to serving society. I think that is self-satisfaction because I achieved something after helping people in need and feel the happiness of other people...” Respondent B

Based on the answers given by the respondents, Respondent E clearly expressed his opinion about she will be very satisfied if she successfully obtained the achievement from volunteerism activities, as she could strongly feel a sense of happiness after helping people who need help. In order to support the opinion of Respondent E, Respondent A clearly mentioned that he was willing to participate in volunteerism activities because of the want of helping others. He can obtain a reward in his heart as inherent-satisfaction after helping people in need and obtaining the feeling the happiness of helping others. Followed by Respondent B also clearly stated that he wanted to help people who faced problems in his mind so he was encouraged to involve in volunteerism activities. He achieved something in volunteerism activities as he got invaluable satisfaction very much after helping people and strongly feeling a sense of happiness. All the results clearly emphasized that they were willing to participate in volunteerism activities because they strongly feel a sense of inherent-satisfaction after achieving their objectives of helping others and strongly feeling a sense of happiness. As a result, the motivation for their participation in volunteerism activities will be enhanced by another one of the internal factors, which is inherent-satisfaction.